World Championships 2013: AFN still searching for funds to camp athletes

Withonly a month left for the IAAF World Championships to begin, Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN is yet to commence final rehearsals for its team. And from all indications, Nigeria is likely to bank on the element of luck to win a medal in Moscow, Russia.

It was gathered that the AFN is still searching for funds to start camping of the selected athletes as efforts by the board led by Solomon Ogba has yielded no result.

Oshomhole with Edo athletes

“There is a saying that it is only money that can bring your plans to fruition. We would have loved to camp the athletes for at least two weeks. But for now there is no such thing, we have no funds to make the camping happen. “Our major worry is our relay teams. They have a good chance to win medals for us, but if they don’t practice, we would have to go there and try harder,” said an official of the federation yesterday.

He added that the only avenue opened for the relay teams to fine-tune their strategy will be on July 26, when Lagos State is likely to host an athletics meet.

“After that we are hopeful that we will get some funds to at least have a week of concentrated preparation before the championships.”

Meanwhile IAAF president, Lamine Diack has disclosed that more countries will watch the events of the World Championships live, as broadcasting agreements are in place covering more territories than ever before in the history of the IAAF World Championships.

The 14th edition of the championships will be the largest global sporting event of the year, with an anticipation that the nine days of action will reach a cumulative audience of more than five billion TV viewers.

“We eagerly await nine days of scintillating action during which the cream of Russian athletics, names like Yelena Isinbayeva, Anna Chicherova and Ivan Ukhov will compete in front of their home fans alongside world stars of the calibre of Usain Bolt, Allyson Felix and Tyson Gay. It’s any true sports fan’s dream,” said Diack.